Introducing the Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK 2013

In “Once Again, A Farewell to Cambridge” (“再别康桥”, 1928), Xu Zhimo (徐志摩) wrote, “By waving my hands / I am saying goodbye to the rosy cloud in the western sky” (“我轻轻的招手 / 作别西天的云彩”). While gesture interaction with the cloud only happens in a poet’s works, in reality the Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK 2013 creates a new world of interactivity with Intel® Core™ processor based applications.

Features

The Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK 2013 includes the following features:

Usage-Mode Coordination

The SDK enables the applications to use more than one of the following usage-modes simultaneously and seamlessly:

- Speech Recognition

- Facial Analysis

- Close-Range Depth Tracking

- Augmented Reality

Multi-Application Coordination

The SDK allows multiple perceptual computing applications to share the input devices such as the CREATIVE* camera and other system resources.

Privacy Notification

The SDK provides notifications to the application end users when the RGB and depth cameras are turned on.

Extensibility

The SDK was designed to easily add more usage modes, add new input hardware, support new game engines and customized algorithms, and support new programming languages.

Architecture

The following diagram shows how a perceptual computing application can be built on top of the Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK, and the SDK’s basic function blocks and interface hierarchy:

The Utilities include C/C++ components such as PXCUPipeline(C), UtilPipeline(C++), etc. These components are mainly used to set up and manage the pipeline sessions. The Frameworks and Session Ports include ports for Unity*, Processing*, and other frameworks and game engines, and ports for programming languages such as C# and Java. The SDK Interfaces include Core Framework APIs, I/O classes, and Algorithms. The perceptual computing applications interact with the SDK through these 3 main functional blocks.

Use Case Examples

The Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK can be used to develop a wide range of applications running on the Intel® Architecture based systems.

User Interface Interactivity

With the speech recognition and gesture tracking features, the SDK extends the input methods outside of the mouse clicks and key presses. The user can command the computer using his or her voice: “Start Email application”, “Compose new message to John Smith”, etc.

Gaming

The SDK supports popular game engines such as Unity* and Processing*.The gesture recognition, hand and figure tracking, speech recognition, and facial tracking features can be used to develop casual games such as operating a car, shooting an arrow, catching a flying object, or controlling a floating raft in a whitewater stream.

Security

Using the facial recognition features, applications can decide the user’s identity and either grant or decline access to the applications. This will provide a higher level security than using a login user id and password.

Augmented Reality

The SDK’s sensory inputs and the 2D/3D object tracking and facial tracking features can be used to develop applications to capture and augment the environment elements. For example, it can be used to generate images to show how the user looks like when trying out a pair of stylish sunglasses.

Other Usages

Besides those use cases listed in this section, the Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK also provides a foundation for the applications in many other important areas, such as productivity, education, medical and healthcare, immersive teleconferencing, and entertainment, etc. Several demo videos of the application based on the SDK are posted on http://intel.com/software/perceptual.

Getting Started

You can get started with the Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK 2013 by following these easy steps: